Colorado's medical marijuana industry has spawned illegal drug networks that are marketing pot across the U.S., illustrating that state laws aren't keeping the drug in the hands of people entitled to use it, regional drug officials say.

A Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area team spent three weeks examining data gathered in the two years following the enactment on Jan. 1, 2010, of state laws governing the cultivation, manufacture and retail sale of medical marijuana and related products.

The review found more than 70 instances of the diversion of medical marijuana to criminal drug operations. In the report, the Drug Enforcement Administration suggested Colorado is on track to become a primary source of supply for high-grade marijuana throughout the country.

Colorado patients, caregivers and dispensaries all have diverted medical marijuana to illegal use in 23 states, according to the review.

"We felt it was probably being diverted, but didn't expect it to be this pronounced, especially with such a small-scale study," said Rocky Mountain HIDTA director Tom Gorman. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

But Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado, said Colorado has the most complex and strict medical marijuana laws in the country. If medical pot is being sold illegally, he said, officials need to crack down on offenders.

"It's just disingenuous to say that marijuana didn't exist in other states and that all of a sudden it does because of medical marijuana laws in Colorado," Vicente said.

In one case, a Kansas Highway Patrol officer stopped a driver headed to Richmond, Va. carrying 10 pounds of marijuana. The driver allegedly told police he got the drugs from Fort Collins dispensaries.

In April of 2011, the North Metro Task Force found marijuana, $4,700 and five guns including an AK-47 at a Commerce City home. The owner had been illegally selling medical marijuana to people who didn't have medical cards.

Authorities have intercepted hundreds of pounds of medical marijuana shipped to the East Coast. Denver police have discovered that Craigslist dispensaries have been the source for illegal sales.

In one case, a man gave medical marijuana "edibles" to a 14-year-old boy, according to the report.

Chicago police reported that medical marijuana was being shipped from Colorado to Illinois by UPS, FedEx and USPS packages just as often as it had previously been sent from California and Oregon.

Thornton police Sgt. Jim Gerhardt, who serves on the North Metro Task Force, said there has been an explosion of illegal marijuana cases in the past two years, ranging from patients selling drugs to suppliers growing large quantities of marijuana for illegal sales.

As recently as 2010, Thornton cops would get only one or two calls for illegal marijuana grow operations a year. Now they can get multiple calls in a single day. Most supply some people with valid medical marijuana cards, but have hundreds of plants more than they should, he said. Many of the growers have armed themselves to protect themselves against home invasions.

"It's becoming a huge, huge problem," Gerhardt said. "At the local law enforcement level it feels like its spinning out of control in a lot of ways."

He said instead of focusing on complex international drug cartels bringing cocaine into Colorado, the task force is dealing with numerous illegal marijuana cases.

Vicente said that the cases cited by authorities represent only a tiny portion of the more than 1 million legal medical marijuana transactions each year in Colorado. There were only a relatively few in 2012, an indication the situation is getting better, he said.

Michael Elliott, executive director of Medical Marijuana Industry Group, said the use of medical marijuana has had positive benefits to society. He said while illicit marijuana use across the country is increasing it is decreasing among kids in Colorado and the drug may have helped drop the suicide rate in Colorado.

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